Some gifts just keep on giving… A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a gift to me when I got to play Oberon (in a, perhaps, 45 minute version) costumed in the shredded greenlining of my mother’s old raincoat in the fourth grade at Ridge Road Elementary in North Haven, Connecticut. It was a gift when I… Continue Reading »
There’s a fascination with dreams in Shakespeare, though Midsummer is the only play to announce one in its title. What’s odd is that aside from Hermia’s unnerving vision in the forest, no dreams are dreamt. Instead, we find characters confronting, exploring, and indulging imagination, testing conditions under which the imagined turns real. Key to Renaissance… Continue Reading »
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, residents of Athens mix with fairies from a local forest, with comic results. In the city, Theseus, Duke of Athens, is to marry Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Bottom the weave rand his friends rehearse in the woods a play they hope to stage for the wedding celebrations. Four young… Continue Reading »
The nautical tale of a wandering prince, Pericles is narrated by John Gower, a poet from the English past. Gower explains that Pericles, Prince of Tyre, hopes to win the hand of a princess in Antioch. When Pericles learns that she and the king, her father, are lovers, he flees for his life. Pericles brings… Continue Reading »
